The Bottom
by Brain and Eggs
Summary: His looks could easily deceive the wisest, unless someone was looking. Unless someone saw.
1. Chapter 1

He stared at the bourbon set in the squat diamond etched tumbler. The level of liquid he had poured an hour ago, hadn't changed. The deep bronzed drink speaking to him through the vessel of the patterned glass.

He leant back into his plush leather chair, behind the large mahogany desk. Doors closed and locked to stop any intruders from interrupting him.

Not that she or the girls, were the intruders. It was he.

He held his two fingers together and pressed against his wrist, listening to his heartbeat.

Slow. Quick. Quick. Slow.

This wasn't normal.

It was like a virus that he never recovered from. Each day, each passing, waking moments were dedicated to the voice in his head telling him, that it was okay. It was okay to drink three quarters of a bottle of bourbon, whisky, Jack Daniels. It didn't matter. It made him feel like there was something that understood his pattern of behaviour in his sorry excuse for a life.

He was a prestigious lawyer, had more money than he knew what to do with. He had a ready made family.

The Dragon Lady. Bitch in Prada Heels. Snow Queen. She had many names. None he had ever called her. She was simply Miranda to him. A woman who had married him for the same reasons he had married her. Their money was separate; they each had their own fortunes. Some of his from family money.

But the reason they were married. Friendship, and security. His love life had nothing to do with her gender.

And her daughters, the twin red heads who he didn't despise, but he knew that they did him.

And the monster on his back that followed him everywhere.

This single glass, with a single finger of liquid. Could undo him faster than anything else he had ever experienced. It wouldn't stop. He didn't know how to stop the world he was living in and jump off. The world which was his total dependency on alcohol.

He heard the unlocking and opening of the main doors. And then the walking across the foyer to the opening of the closet. And then the setting down of the book.

He didn't know later what had convinced him it was a good idea. But he stood and exited his office, walking down a set of stairs before finding himself face to face with a very nervous looking assistant.

Andy? He could hardly remember, but she had more about her than the other one who reminded him of an aunt he had once hated. All puff and rudeness undercovering the insecurity of inferiority.

But this one was always nothing other than polite. She carried a sweetness. And there was warmth about her.

This was the kind of girl that you would never want to hurt.

He didn't realise it until she looked down at his hand and paled.

"Oh my god are you okay?" She stepped forward, fishing a clean handerkerchief out of her pocket. Before he realised it his bloody hand was wrapped tightly as she pressed down against a large, gaping wound.

He must have been more lost in thought than he had thought. The tumbler once still had somehow smashed beneath his fingers. Time lost between his office and now.

"Thank you."

She nodded, his other hand snaked around to grip his other hand with pressure to stop the blood flow.

She stepped back and looked at him with a concern, he had seldom seen in his life.

"Umm." She stood looking unsure. "Do you want me to call Roy to take you to the ER?"

He shook his head.

"No. I'll be fine."

"Okay." She stammered quietly. Still not moving.

"Well I better find a bandage for this." He gestured lightly to his now burning hand. There might be a tiny fragment of glass still ensconced deeply underneath his skin.

She nodded and slowly turned on her heels.

As much as he was a homosexual, he could still appreciate the fine curves of her posterior. She broke him out of his gaze yet again, having turned and appeared to bite her lip, before she handed him a card out of another pocket in her waistcoat jacket.

He took the card and there was a cell number written across in a silver ink pen.

He shook his head at her, not understanding.

She paused; he could see the deep rise and fall of her chest before she spoke again.

"That number, it's just. If you … if you want too. Umm … someone I know. A buddy. Just, if you need to talk."

He frowned.

She had some guts he'd give her that.

"Talk about what?"

She gave him a grave smile.

"How you cut your hand. Can you even remember?" She paused again, before swallowing and speaking slowly.

"Addiction and the damage it can do." Her voice was just below a normal tone. Her words impacted him in between his aching skull and burning eyes.

"Just if you want to. Sometimes … it helps." She finished, walking away. The clack of her heels the only sound on the polished hardwood as she exited the townhouse.

He looked down at the card, in the quiet of the foyer. Tracing the number with his finger.

_an; tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

Seven weeks later.

Andy paid ardent attention to the computer screen, as she worked with brisk efficiency to finish another one of Miranda's demands of her work day. She looked up to find Stephen clearing his throat quietly.

"Oh Mr Tomlinson. Miranda is downstairs; do you want me to call her now?"

"No. no. I can wait a few minutes."

She smiled and nodded, waiting for him to go into her office. Instead she felt his shadow over her and her computer desk. She looked up at him, trying to decipher the look on his face.

"Is there something I can help you with Mr Tomlinson?"

He sniffed lightly, brushing away a stray hair on his cheek. "Did she not tell you?"

She frowned. "Miranda?"

"No. Your friend."

Andy paused mid type and looked up at the greying hair in the darkened office light. "No."

"No? Why not?"

Andy sighed internally.

"Because it is anonymous. She's someone you talk to when you need too. She keeps everything private. Don't ask. Don't tell."

Stephen frowned, the lines on his forehead more prominent. Before he walked across and sat on Emily's desk directly opposite her. Andy stood up and turned to the printer, allowing the quiet of the office to wash over them both, in the shank of the hour of eleven in the evening.

"You knew?"

Andy paused briefly as she retrieved the next log itinerary.

"Yes I did." She replied, with her back still to him.

"How? I mean drunk at a gala party can happen to anyone."

She turned around sensing he needed to know why she of all people had taken an interest in his health. "True. It could happen to anyone."

"And it isn't as though we are friends, you don't like me at all." He finished his sentence, with a cool detachment of previously informed knowledge.

"I never said that."

"No but I can see it in your eyes, when you are with Miranda. You despise me. It is your job to cater to her every whim, not mine."

"I didn't know I was catering to your every whim."

"I'm just saying, you could have been fired for giving me that card. For saying anything to me about it all."

Andy paused and took in his calm demeanour. No alcohol. "Can't it mean I was just trying to be nice?"

"An idiotic choice for someone who could be fired. And like I said before; You. Do. Not. Like. Me."

His questioning must be how he approached the witness box, she thought. Before answering his question at a face value, she knew wasn't the whole truth.

"Is it so impossible for someone to believe I was just trying to do something, that would help?"

His eyes hardened. "Why?"

She turned around her desk, and sat on it, directly opposite him. Eyes bore into one another's. After a few moments she tilted her head. "Did talking to her help?"

He pursed his lips and looked heaven upwards before engaging with her and answering the question.

"I'm not sure. I've spoken to her twice. I don't know if it has helped. Your … buddy, didn't even ask who I was, she just … listened."

Andy gave a brief nod of her head softly, to indicate she understood.

He sighed. "Still doesn't make sense why some twenty something assistant of my wife cared, when she didn't want money or to get laid by some older debonair guy."

She smirked at him.

"Does it have to make sense?"

"I'm a lawyer kiddo. I have to understand everything."

She gave a sad sound before speaking again. "Why is it since coming to New York everybody has to have an angle to do something for the other?"

"I don't know why. It just is. Still damned if I know and I'm from Michigan. Let me say it again; you hate me, so why do something to help me?"

She stared at him, and suddenly her eyes looked older than his own.

"Fine, you're right. I don't like you. You are rude, crass, say the wrong thing when you are supposed to be supporting your wife, and nine times out of ten you are drunk whenever I see you. But that doesn't mean that I cannot do something that would help someone."

Baffling. This girl was baffling.

"So I ask you, do you think talking to her has helped at all?" She asked, waiting, patiently.

He stood up and sat next to her right side on the desk, she sat upon.

"I'm not sure. I think it'll be a while before I think I can go into that room with a bunch of strangers and say my name is Stephen and I am an alcoholic."

Space and time slowed.

"You just did." She uttered softly.

He paused and took a deep cleansing breath. Realization shuffling through him.

"So I did."

"So maybe it did help."

He looked down, and nodded at his feet. He looked at her again, tears shining in his eyes.

"Why did you want to help me?"

She swallowed gently.

"Because…once, someone helped me."

His eyes widened, and she smiled sadly at him. "Why does everybody think I am a sweet naïve dork from Ohio with no past? I guess, when I saw you…I guess…It takes one to know one."

"You're still a child."

She snorted without humour."So I have been told."

He breathed loudly through his nose before standing.

"I better go wait downstairs with Roy; I have no interest in peasant blouses and pleated skirts."

She smiled and stood her paperwork in hand.

"Hey, if I don't get a chance to say it ...Thanks." He said quietly, before turning and walking away. As he took in the magazine covers and bright shining light. He knew what he had to do.

She watched the back of the tired looking older man, before she walked into Miranda's office.

Not noting the pained steely gazed eyes that had witnessed the scene.

_an; tbc_


	3. Chapter 3

Three weeks later.

Stephen rocked tightly on the balls of his feet. Arms wrapped tightly around his midsection. He couldn't drink water, his hands shook and he continued to vomit. Sweat poured off his face, between feeling ferociously frozen and then feeling like he was being burnt alive.

His heart pounded with each tight, shallow breath. Flashes of memory, certain that he was on the edge of his life. He couldn't move, but it hurt to stay still. Aches up and down his back and nervous spasms in his stomach.

He couldn't do this. And yet he had too. He continued to rock back and forth not noting the nurse who watched him from behind the glass.

He was dying; it was the only explanation for it. He was dying, and his body kept stalling him, in flights of pain. He wanted it over. He wanted to be done with this. And yet knew that he was nowhere near finished. He felt his eyes beginning to blur. Dehydration and repeated shaky movements to the bathroom toilet, doing their work.

Before he fell into unconsciousness, a nurses kind eyes came into his hazy, fleeting vision.

...

Andy stared out of the window, street artists showing their beauty where they were able. Miranda taking note of some of it. It amazed Andy. When she had first come to Runway she thought it superficial nonsense. Before she realised the beauty and artistry that Miranda saw. She saw in places nobody would think to look.

As Roy slowed in the unmoving traffic. Andy saw the tightening around Miranda's eyes; it would take twice the length of time to reach James Holt office. And there was nothing could be done within the common New York gridlock.

Roy knew better than to apologise and so the silent car waited. Andy saw out of the corner of her eyes Miranda roll her eyes, before she pressed the privacy screen, which moved up in quick routine tandem.

Andy prepared her notebook ready for more words spoken at the speed of a spit fire. Miranda clasped her hands in her lap before she looked out of her side window, watching stray flowers dance in the wind.

"Stephen has gone to a rehabilitation facility."

Andy paused and calmed herself before she looked at the woman who sat next to her. Miranda turned and look back at Andrea, her eyes questioning, angry and hurt. She raised an eyebrow.

"He certainly had no interest in doing that three months ago. What do you think changed?" Her question was deceptively light, her tone mild.

"I don't know what changed for him personally Miranda." Andy answered, her words as honest, but bespoke another question from the editor.

"What do you mean; you do not know what changed for him personally?"

Andy sighed, "I don't know what light bulb moment he had Miranda. I would postulate that seeing as you are asking me; it is because you know I gave him the telephone number of someone who would help. I can answer the question generally. But not the workings of his mind."

Miranda paused before she spoke again, her voice slightly hoarse.

"But you knew how to get through to him. You saw something. You knew where to reach him."

Andy stared at Miranda waiting. Something hidden in Miranda's depths that suddenly became visible to the brunette. It was pain and hurt of someone Miranda had once loved in her own way. And not being able to help that person. And somehow, someone who didn't know Stephen personally, had.

"Yes. I had a feeling. And so I pushed at it."

"No Andrea, you didn't just have a feeling. You saw it all. You knew exactly what would help. You do not know him, apart from grievous mistakes at functions. But you saw something, nobody not even me saw. Or at least nobody would speak of. What gave you the right?" Her voice was soft.

Andy stared into the coals that laid an ember in their wake of Miranda's burning, questioning eyes.

Dark eyes met blazing azure ones. Tight and unsure.

Andy swallowed before speaking quietly, but there was confidence behind her tone.

"I saw, because I know. I do not need to know him as a person. I know Stephen, Miranda. I know when he turned up at the gala the first thing he did was make sure he knew where the bar was. I know that when the car pulled up he clocked the store opposite with a liquor license. I know that when the car was moving he noted the two other stores one block away, and three blocks away. I know Miranda because it's what I do. You do it on auto pilot so you don't have to think about it. It's what we do. Clock every single moment, in every single environment. Just so we feel safe. Safe in knowing that if we are going to lose our grip, if we are going to lose our control we know where we can do it. I know that no matter how much you may act, in frustration of him, I know however much the girls hate him, is nowhere near the amount he despises himself. Fury at not being able to get out. Not being able to get out of the four walls in his head. Not being able to get out of the circle he finds himself on. And it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop, no matter how much you try. I knew it as soon as he said somebody called him Mr Priestly. I know it in the way he moves. I saw it in the prison in his eyes. And it's not because I know him Miranda. It's because a part of me is him. It is a part of all of us."

"Us?"

"Addicts."

Miranda flinched at that. Andy sat back in her seat, and said nothing as she let Miranda absorb what she had said.

Ten minutes passed before Miranda found it within herself to speak again.

"What did you mean, when you said you do not have to know or like the person to … know them?"

Andy smiled, continuing to look across the gleaming distance.

"Because, the person who hated me the most, helped me the most."

She turned around and looked at Miranda.

"I was a teenager. I lost someone. I lost control. And I knew how to hide. But there was one person, who saw me within a second of meeting me. Knew I had this locked inside of me. And I was simply given a card. The same card I gave Stephen. You try to claw your way out of denial, and you let it go. And you fight. And that is the hardest thing. I didn't want to fight, it was too hard. But you realise if you don't, you will die. And I realised, that I wanted to live." Andy finished her eyes beginning to glisten.

Miranda deep waters beginning to fill themselves.

"I haven't known how to speak to him about it."

Andy nodded.

"Perhaps, you didn't want to speak to him about it. Speaking means it's real. Real in a way that makes you feel guilty. And you shouldn't feel guilty. Anger is real. Hate is real. But it doesn't mean that you don't love that person." Andy wiped an errant tear away. Non-alcoholic wine and six years sober didn't make it any easier. But it did help to practice. And it took practice, to make it easier.

"Do you think he will fight?" Miranda asked. Vulnerable in a way she detested, but needing to know. Despite the divorce imminent she did love the man she had once called her friend.

"He has a chance. He is the one with the power."

"What makes you think that?"

Andy gave a small smirk, not knowing later what possessed her later on but brushing away a tear on Mirandas snow white face.

"If he didn't want to fight, he wouldn't have come downstairs when I delivered the book. For whatever reason, he wanted to reach out."

Miranda pursed her lips and nodded before taking a soft grip of Andreas hand.

…

One month later.

The man cleared his throat, shining light bouncing off his rich red hair.

"Okay, is there anyone else who would like to speak?"

The room was filled with twenty people all shifting in their seats, some not ready. Some had already spoken.

He raised his hand.

"Yes, you." Said the man with the red hair and a kind voice.

He stood and straightened his arms, and cleared his throat. Before he looked at the people who looked at him. No judgement. No pity.

"My name is Stephen. And I'm an alcoholic."


End file.
